This invention pertains to a ticket pack for passenger tickets, as used for passenger travel, and to a method of assembling such a pack.
In recent years, ATB tickets made of card stock have come into widespread use. "ATB" is an acronym for an "automated ticket and boarding pass." Typically, an ATB ticket is divided by a first line of perforations into a stub portion and a main portion. The main portion may be further divided by another line of perforations into a passenger coupon and a boarding pass. The passenger coupon may serve also as a baggage check.
As pre-printed with standard information, ATB tickets are available from Rand McNally & Company of Skokie, Ill. Automated machines are used to overprint variable information on the pre-printed tickets, such as destinations, fares, and the like, and to dispense the overprinted tickets.
Conventional practices have been for a passenger to receive a set of such tickets, one providing a passenger coupon and a boarding pass for each trip and another providing a receipt for the passenger, and for the tickets constituting the set to be tamped into a compact stack and then assembled into a folder by means of staples passing through the stub portions of the stacked tickets and through a panel of the folder. The main portions of selected tickets may be later torn off and slipped into a pocket formed in the folder.
Because ticket agents and other personnel involved with passenger travel are required to handle vast numbers of passenger tickets, improvements in ticket-handling practices promise to provide enormous benefits to such personnel, their employers, and the passenger with whom such personnel and their employers deal, not only in terms of cost savings but also in terms of employee morale and passenger satisfaction.
Herefore, there has been a need, to which this invention is addressed, for improvements enabling ticket packs to be assembled with greater convenience to ticket agents and other personnel involved with passenger travel and to passengers.